Thursday, October 29, 2009

"Every indication is that the Bluefin Tuna population is crashing toward extinction," said Felicity Wade from The Wilderness Society. "While it is heartening to see governments finally acting on its plight, the 20% international cut is inadequate for the crisis the blue fin tuna is facing. If we were serious about bringing this fish back from the brink," concluded Ms Wade, "the fishery would be completely closed while populations recovered."

The fish was listed in 1996 as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The major market for the fish is Japan to make Sushi and sushimi, highly prized as a Japanese delicacy.

The 25% cut in the Australian quota for Southern Bluefin Tuna has been described by the Wilderness Society as a step in the right direction, but the cut is too little too late with the fish species tittering close to the edge of extinction. The Quota reduction was made in an agreement at the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna meeting in South Korea in October 2009.

TRAFFIC's Global Marine Programme Leader Glenn Sant said that the Southern Bluefin Tuna populations would not recover for many years, even under the best scenario. "The members agree it is a crisis with the breeding stock being somewhere between three and eight per cent of its original level," said Sant. "A 20 per cent cut is a step towards resolving the terribly low level of Southern Bluefin Tuna Stock, with the scientific assessment of the scenario saying there could be recovery, but only after many years."

Conservation organisations at the meeting which included WWF and TRAFFIC had asked for a temporary closure of the fishery, while Australia had requested a 50 per cent cut in catches. The Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna is a voluntary fishery management group comprised of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the Philippines as a formal cooperating non-member. Much of the Southern Bluefin Tuna catch ends up in Japan where it is prized as sushi and sushimi.

Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Taiwanese Bluefin tuna fleets use long line fishing which results in the incidental deaths of thousands of seabirds, particularly petrels and albatross. "The 20% reduction in SBT quota is insufficient to give the species a chance to recover and still means the likely death of 10,700 albatross each year", said Nicola Beynon, Humane Society International (HSI) Senior Program Manager. Most of the Australian catch is done through netting for aquaculture sea farming, minimising sea bird deaths.

According to HSI the Scientific Committee to the Commission has estimated the SBT population is at a mere 3-8% of its pre-exploitation biomass and only a zero quota would give the species a decent chance to recover. HSI and other conservation organisations have pushed for the Commission to suspend the global catch until fish numbers recover to sustain ecologically sustainable harvests.

The tuna fishing industry in Australia is centred on Port Lincoln in South Australia. Australia's average catch per year has been reduced by 30% from 5265 tonnes to 4015 tonnes over 2010 and 2011, and the global catch quota reduced by 20 per cent from 11,810 tonnes to 9449 tonnes along with 20 per cent reductions to other countries.

For 20 years Japan plundered the Southern Bluefin Tuna Fishery. Japan's overfishing through an Experimental Fishing Program (EFP) was challenged by Australia and New Zealand in 1999 with provisional measures granted pending Arbitration in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. The Tribunal's Order effectively applied the precautionary approach to fisheries management and highlighted the argument that unilateral experimental fishing cannot exceed a State's national allocation. (The Southern Bluefin Tuna Case: ITLOS Hears Its First Fishery Dispute)

A 2006 report by the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin found that Japan had illegally caught up to $6 billion worth of the fish over the past 20 years. The report said that if Japan had stuck to its catch quota, the stock of Southern Bluefin would be at least five times larger.

The northern bluefin tuna also faces overfishing with the Prince of Monaco applying for a CITES listing which would ban the trade in the species for commercial purposes, placing much more pressure on the southern bluefin tuna.

The scientists from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) met in Madrid, Spain (21-23 October) to assess current stock status of Atlantic bluefin tuna against the specific criteria necessary to list a species under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). ICCAT's scientists estimate that the current spawning biomass is less than 15 per cent of what it once was before fishing began - meaning Atlantic bluefin tuna meets the criteria for a CITES Appendix I listing.

"What's needed to save the stocks is a suspension of fishing activity and a suspension of international commercial trade - this is the only possible package that can give this fish a chance to recover," said Dr Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean. "We must stop mercilessly exploiting this fragile natural resource until stocks show clear signs of rebound and until sustainable management and control measures are firmly put in place."

WWF and Greenpeace are urging ICCAT to impose a zero quota at the organization's next annual meeting on 6-16 November in Recife, Brazil. The application for CITES Appendix I listing will go before the 175 CITES member countries to decide at the next Conference of the Parties of CITES, in Doha, Qatar, in March 2010.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Federal Parliament committee report on rising sea level caused by global warming has been welcomed by Friends of the Earth (FOE). Damien Lawson, National Climate Justice Coordinator of Friends of the Earth said "The report is a wake up call about the sea level rise threat, but it may have underestimated the sea level rise problem. Around the world changes in the climate system are breaching worse case scenarios. It is likely sea level rises will be the same. The view that sea level rise may not be more than a metre is assuming no major loss from the Antarctic ice sheet. That is a dangerous assumption given the recent evidence of warming there, and the fragility of many of the ice shelves which are restraining glacier outflow."

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

From Alphington to Warrawong, Broome to Wagga, Townsville to St Helens thousands of people across Australia attended a diverse variety of over 175 different climate action events calling on politicians to set the target for CO2 emissions to 350 parts per million (ppm) for a reasonable chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. CO2 emissions are already at 387ppm so we need to have negative emissions through active programs to draw down and stabilise carbon from the atmosphere. Photos on Flickr

In Sydney 1500 people gathered at the Sydney Opera House forecourt and made a human sign spelling '350' with blue Umbrellas. The rally was addressed by speakers including Lord Mayor Clover Moore and ABC Science journalist Robyn Williams.Photos

Hundreds of cyclists gathered and rode through the city of Melbourne before forming '350' as a human sign to call on the Australian Government and politicians from other nation states for substantial CO2 emission reduction targets to reach the 350ppm CO2 level, regarded by many scientists as the safe level to avoid dangerous climate change.

This was one event of many in Melbourne held on October 24, 2009 of a global protest in over four thousand locations calling for climate action.

Much of the ride was led by the seven seater Bikezilla accompanied by lots of kids, here outside the Victorian State Parliament. The State Government and energy minister Peter Batchelor has been advocating for a new coal export industry for Victoria, from the vast reserves of brown coal.

Greenpeace climate change campaigner Julien Vincent has urged the Premier to instead invest his government’s efforts and resources into generating opportunities for the manufacture and export of proven renewable energy technologies.

“If the state government wants to be taken seriously on climate change, we should be hearing announcements about turning the Latrobe Valley into Victoria’s renewable energy manufacturing hub,” he said according to a Friends of the Earth Media Release.

At the end of the ride through the city cyclists gathered in a park on the south side of the Yarra river and constructed a huge human/bike sign calling for the 350ppm CO2 target to send a message to world leaders in Copenhagen in December. A blimp took an aerial photo of the human sign.

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About Me

Time to leap out of the slowly boiling pot of earth's warming climate
into action on climate mitigation and adaption.
I don't want my children to ask why I didn't act after reading the
scientific reports of climate risks. I write on the
effects of human induced climate change, sea level rise, ocean
acidification, biodiversity loss, environmental and social impacts of
global warming, and climate protests from a Melbourne Citizen
Journalist.

A member of environmental NGOs and community groups for 30 years in Australia, currently living in Melbourne. I have been a Citizen journalist for the Indymedia network in Australia and worldwide from 2000, as an editor and contributor with Australia Indymedia and the global features collective. Since 2013 I have contributed many stories to Margot Kingston's citizen journalism website: nofibs.com.au. (See my article archive) I also post photoessays to Flickr and videos to Youtube and edit wikipedia as user Tirin. My website is takver.com where I can be contacted through the feedback form, the most reliable way to contact me. I can also be contacted through facebook and on twitter as @takvera.